Non-stop farce

The past few weeks appear to have brought nothing but bad news for Thai citizens but I feel it’s wrong to see it as failing confidence. It’s much more likely continued disbelief. Their institutions are doing so badly that you have to ask if there are any which are fit for the purpose, or are they all minimum performers? The police were handed what looked like a slam dunk in a poaching case with pictures, video and soundtrack all appearing to be absolute proof of a rich tycoon hunting trip in a national forest where a small party killed protected species.

Out of all this hard and substantial evidence, they appear to have been quite capable of building a case as solid as the morning mist. The anti-corruption institutions still seem unable to find any corruption anywhere, at any time, until it is dropped in their laps by temporary student workers. They, too, were handed a pretty straightforward case needing nothing more than an acceptable, truthful answer from a general substantiating his ownership, or not, of several expensive watches, but three months later they apparently haven’t received an answer.

Our prime minister, having quickly found reasons to pontificate on protesters and student mime performers, has been as silent as a cardboard cutout on the activities of the numerous government officials caught up in robbing the poor to invest in glamourous houses and cars. Only the continued existence of a vast media network in the hands of the government and army has prevented the sort of late-night comedy that has harassed the US president ever since his election, and provided years of hilarity in the UK from the likes of Spitting Image to Not The 9 O’Clock News.

Sure there would have been a TV Crimes Act if Thailand allowed the media free rein on the non-stop comedy show that passes at present for diligent due process. LUNGSTIB.